Leaving Tampa with Clemson fans, the happiest family in the country

TAMPA, Fla. — Welcome to Terminal C at Tampa International Airport. Right now, the “C” is short for “Clemson.”

A title trip is routine for Tide fans. It was a pilgrimage for Clemson faithful, to somewhere much closer than Arizona last year. Now their flights are heading to Raleigh and Atlanta.

The party’s over in Florida, and it’s time to go home. But they’re going home as champions.

Sporting colors in the wake of a loss was likely not on the radar of Crimson Tide fans. There’d been little thinking that their previously perfect team would fail in its quest to be the third wire-to-wire No. 1 team in the sport’s history. How could there have been?

Their counterparts in orange and purple aren’t slinking through the airport. They’re holding their heads high, some already with shirts commemorating No. 1. One on his phone tells his wife they’re going to buy $1,000 worth of championship gear. He’s got a toddler who needs some title swag.

There’s an Ohio State fan sitting across the bar. The Tigers had smashed the Buckeyes in the semifinal Fiesta Bowl. A pair of Clemson buddies are feeling themselves. With a championship hat on, one yells, “I think we just scored on y’all again,” with a twang that implies South Carolina.

“Enjoy your first one in 31 years,” comes the retort.

“35 years, get it right dude,” the Clemson fan says.

Then, to his buddy: “He’s thinking 31 because it was 31 against them.”

William Christopher “Dabo” Swinney didn’t need this moment for vindication in most eyes, but history does demand receipts. The team he built produced them. The universe even made him wait a little bit longer, with the game not officially in the books until a booth review. Swinney told Nick Saban in the offseason that they’d meet again in Tampa.

The loss last year in Arizona didn’t break this program; instead it went back to base camp. This time, it would not slip at the summit.

“Eight years ago our goal was to work our tails off and eventually get Clemson back on top, and tonight that’s a reality,” he said. “It truly is. The paw is flying on top of that mountain tonight. We saw the top of it last year, didn’t get quite there. Tonight we took that next step.

“As I said earlier, it’s not just for this team, it’s a credit to all my teams, all my players. They all share in this moment. They truly do. They truly do. Because what they did was meant for them at that time, but this was meant for this team. This was this team’s responsibility. This was this team’s mission, and there was really only one lid left on the program, and that was to win the whole dadgum thing.”

He was working for ESPN during the game. He took his headset off as the confetti rained down and gave someone a hug.

Boyd was integral in building the program to what it is now. He was one of the five-best recruits ever to sign to Clemson when he did so in 2007, and the highest-rated quarterback. Now he doesn’t even crack the top 15, a testament to how far the team has come. He since came back to help Clemson’s scout team before both Playoff games this year.

“To see the transition, to see where this team is going, man,” Boyd said. “Rose from the ashes to bring this one back first one since 1981. Couldn’t have happened to a better group of people, couldn’t have happened to a better coach than Dabo Swinney.”

Swinney walked toward the locker room, saluting the fans, the ones he acknowledged on the podium as deserving of this win. He walked past the place where his coaching staff tackled him before the final whistle had even sounded. There were tears in his eyes and a monkey off his back. He beat his alma mater and the man who will likely go down as the best to ever do their shared profession. Their programs are markedly different, yet both elite. Alabama’s approach is methodical. Clemson lets its hair down.

Swinney was a poor boy, then a poor college athlete. In his words, a “crawl-on.”

After a run as an assistant at Alabama, he spent two years as a real estate agent, then became an assistant for the program he turned into a behemoth.

Swinney’s Clemson runs on the family mantra, fitting for a man who lived in a dorm with his mother in Tuscaloosa. Fitting for a man from a broken home, looking to make sure his organization resembles something like a loving unit.

Before the game, that team walked arm-in-arm across the field, like a long orange wall, its excitement crescendoing as it reached the end zone.

After the game, Swinney swaddles the trophy like his own infant, the product of 13 years of labor at Clemson. He embraces his quarterback Deshaun Watson like his fourth son.

Watson’s performance was disjointed, shaky, and brilliant. He was harassed by Jonathan Allen and the fearsome Bama pass rush. He missed WR Deon Cain when the Tampa native had a step on a DB and only painted end zone grass in front of him. Cain was visibly frustrated with the misfire.

Watson somehow survived this, and without fumbling:

When they needed him, he was locked in. Watson’s first throw of the fourth quarter was a touchdown to Mike Williams. His last was a TD to Hunter Renfrow. Watson set a title game record with 420 yards. You can have your Heisman, and you can dissect his every interception. He still earned the trophy that matters more.

Watson was 6 of 7 on the final drive he’ll ever have in Clemson orange. Before that drive, he’d told himself Bama had left him too much time.

As I write this, they’ve been joined by a few in the seating area. They’re laughing about the Alabama radio call, the monotone delivery by Eli Gold of one of the happiest moments of their lives. They pass a pair of headphones around.

They’re talking about the game with some other Clemson fans who are four bottles into the Chardonnay. It is 20 hours after the game kicked off. One drunkenly introduces himself as from Greenville, S.C., and his buddy wants to make sure he said Greenville and not the name of his favorite bar.

The televisions in the airport play Clemson’s arrival at Memorial Stadium. The Tigers are home, and those who are still in transit connect to their team and their campus through the TV.

A group of new friends asks the bartender to take a picture. They even let an Alabama fan get in.

“We had a good time here in Tampa,” he said.